Cynthia Phillips and Her Journey As a 2020 Homecare Hero

Assured Quality Homecare is proud to announce that its very own Cynthia Phillips has been selected as a 2020 Homecare Hero finalist; an effort by HomeCare® Magazine - the leading business magazine for HME and Home Health Professionals to highlight the extraordinary and heroic work homecare professionals undertake every day. HomeCare® chose 12 finalists that best represent the heroic nature of the homecare industry because they rose to meet the challenges and circumstances of 2020 and to recognize their years of tireless service.

Assured Quality Homecare LLC (ASQ Homecare) is an award-winning home care agency and leader among home care agencies in Connecticut; a nationally recognized Best of Homecare company, three-time Employer of Choice award recipient, and two-time recipient of the Best of Readers Choice Top 3 Home Care Agency award.

“We would like to congratulate and thank Cynthia Phillip for her dedication, professionalism, and compassion, and look forward to her continued journey with us. Cynthia embodies our purpose, vision, and mission to provide our clients and families with in-home care services that create relief and peace of mind” says Samanta Roseme,  RN BSN, CEO & Founder of Assured Quality Homecare

“Thank you, frontline workers,” and “We love our health care heroes.” are familiar signs in neighborhoods around the country, praising physicians, hospital workers, EMTs, and even grocery store employees. But one group—the professionals who care for people in their homes and provide the equipment for them to stay safe at home—was almost universally overlooked. The team at HomeCare®  thought it is time to remedy that, and as a result, Homecare Heroes was born.

The selection process from the nominations proved incredibly difficult because the nominations ranged from nurses, caregivers, salespeople, customer service representatives, respiratory therapists, physical and occupational therapists, equipment techs, and hospice volunteers. According to the HomeCare team, nominations came in from bosses, employees, parents, friends, and patients. One person received more than 25 nods; someone nominated their entire workforce; another suggested that the entire industry deserved applause. “Any of these frontline workers deserve recognition,” one read. “They are just as valuable and important as the hospital workers!!”

“The team at Assured Quality Homecare agrees! So thank you to all of the Homecare Heroes out there, “we hope you know how valued you are”. Says Kelley Roy

A caregiver's work has never been more important than during this time when the elderly, the disabled, and people with chronic health conditions are vulnerable to an airborne virus and advised to quarantine. Experienced caregivers like Cynthia are doing a service to their communities that deserves notice.

“Cynthia is living proof that caregivers are the secret sauce to helping our elderly population age well, stay healthier and happier in the comfort of their own home,” Kelley Roy, Assured Quality Homecare’s clinical administrator, wrote in her nomination of Phillips. Kelley explains, “on many occasions, Cynthia’s keen observations and input have helped her client’s families decide when it’s time to call in hospice, when it’s time to let go and when it’s time to accept that medications for comfort at the end of life are necessary.”

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Cynthia has been a CNA since 2000.  She was hired as a caregiver for  Assured Quality Homecare in September of 2017 and has been providing her clients and their families with extraordinary care experiences ever since!  Her dedication and commitment to excellence are second to none. Her commitment to excellence goes above and beyond the call of duty. She is passionate about advocating for the best interests of the client, despite the many barriers that may come her way. In-home care, it is not unusual for a single caregiver to have worked for 6 or more families in the span of a year due to the client’s unmet expectations, or life events such as falls, hospitalizations, or death. Cynthia has only cared for 3 families in 3 years and she has been able to keep all her clients safe in their homes and has provided outstanding care to her clients and families.

On several occasions, hospice nurses have reported that Cynthia’s meticulous care and unparalleled dedication to her clients have kept them alive for much longer than they had expected! She has given them hope and filled their days with meaningful activities.  

She embodies Assured Quality homecare core values with her compassionate spirit, her resourcefulness, and dedication to those under her care. Cynthia represents the Gold standard for homecare and the value she brings into every home.  She is living proof that caregivers are the secret sauce to helping our elderly population age well, stay healthier, and happier in the comfort of their own home. On many occasions, Cynthia’s keen observations and input have helped her client’s families decide when it’s time to call in Hospice, when it's time to let go, and when it’s time to accept that medications for comfort at the end of life are necessary.

On a typical day, Cynthia starts early in the morning, wakes her patient, bathes and dresses him, changes and washes his bedding, cooks him breakfast, brings in the newspaper and the mail, and then, after not too long, starts trying to convince him to each lunch, which he usually resists. She cleans his home, gives him a bed bath in the evening, feeds him dinner and checks in with his five adult children, updating them on their father and on needs for the household, and then sits and talks with him in the evening, mostly about national politics or his own history helping build their shared neighborhood in the 1950s.

But what really makes Cynthia special as a caregiver is the long-term relationships she develops with her patients and their families. In fact, in the last three years, Phillips has had only three clients, as she has stayed with each until the end. Her last patient passed away in June of 2020 of complications from Parkinson’s; she is now providing care for the woman’s 97-year-old husband, a polio survivor with mobility issues.

“I love it because I get to know my clients and I have a better rapport with them,” Phillips said. “I can understand what needs they have because I’m there all the time.”

A daughter’s testimony about Cynthia:

Cynthia has cared for my Parents since January 2019. My mother died from Parkinson’s while under her care in June of this year and she is now the caregiver for my father. Cynthia was very meticulous in providing for the physical care of my mother.  She made sure she was always clean and well-groomed.  This was noted by the funeral home after she passed. They made a point of commenting to me that they seldom see a person, at the end of life, in my mother's condition whose skin was in such good condition and with no bed sores at all!. She made efforts to make sure my mother had a good quality of life even with her limitations.  She knew that my mother had been an active person.  She went out of her way to take mom for walks in her wheelchair and even took her on the bus a few times to visit stores and just ride around town! She continues to take very good care of the house.  She makes sure the house is always clean, neat, and orderly.  She treats my parent's house as if it were her own. She is very proactive about identifying needs. She recognizes when my parents' needs change and makes suggestions to us (five children) and the health care team about how to address these concerns.  She adapts her workflow to accommodate changing needs. She is very conscientious about safety.  She knows that my father, who is 97 years old (and who also had polio as a child and walks with a most unusual gait)  is a fall risk. She understands that a fall would be devastating for him.  She follows him closely when he walks and encourages him to use the wheelchair on the days he is especially unsteady on his feet. When COVID hit, she took over giving my dad showers to limit the number of people coming into the house. She brings my dad treats, like apple fritters and muffins, from time to time to brighten his day, and she varies the foods she prepares for him so his diet is not dull or boring!  Finally, she is very flexible with her schedule and often works extra shifts on her days off to cover for the other caregivers on her team so that my parents had consistency in their care and did not have to adjust to unfamiliar caregivers.

Read Cynthia’s entire Homecare Hero Story here >>

About HomeCare

The Leading Business Magazine for HME and Home Health Professionals, HomeCare® covers the HME/DME provider, home health agency, and caregiver markets. Homecare helps business owners succeed in an increasingly challenging marketplace with stories about business management best practices, industry-leading firms, new products, regulatory matters, and industry news.

About Assured Quality Homecare

Assured Quality Homecare provides clients and families with in-home care services that create relief and peace of mind and is Connecticut’s leading home care agency. Assured Quality Homecare’s in-house caregiver training, empowerment, and employment program is the only of its kind and is setting the gold standard for in-home care. Assured Quality Homecare is a nationally recognized Best of Homecare® Company, a three-time recipient of the Employer of Choice award, and a recipient of the 2019 Best of Readers Choice Top 3 Homecare Agency award.

To find out more about Assured Quality Homecare’s commitment to being the Gold Standard in homecare, please visit www.asqhomecare.com or call (860) 373-0428.